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Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Official Transcript of Proceedings NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION Title: Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards Fukushima Subcommittee Meeting Docket Number: (n/a) Location: Rockville, Maryland Date: Thursday, June 23, 2011 Work Order No.: NRC-971 Pages 1-118 NEAL R. GROSS AND CO., INC. Court Reporters and Transcribers 1323 Rhode Island Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20005 (202) 234-4433 DISCLAIMER UNITED STATES NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION’S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS The contents of this transcript of the proceeding of the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards, as reported herein, is a record of the discussions recorded at the meeting. This transcript has not been reviewed, corrected, and edited, and it may contain inaccuracies. 1 1 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 2 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 3 + + + + + 4 ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON REACTOR SAFEGUARDS 5 (ACRS) 6 + + + + + 7 FUKUSHIMA SUBCOMMITTEE 8 + + + + + 9 THURSDAY 10 JUNE 23, 2011 11 + + + + + 12 ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND 13 + + + + + 14 The Advisory Committee met at the Nuclear 15 Regulatory Commission, Two White Flint North, Room 16 T2B1, 11545 Rockville Pike, Rockville, Maryland, at 17 1:00 p.m., Said Abdel-Khalik, Chairman, presiding. 18 19 COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT: 20 SAID ABDEL-KHALIK, Chairman 21 JOHN W. STETKAR, Member-at-Large 22 J. SAM ARMIJO, Member 23 DENNIS C. BLEY, Member 24 CHARLES H. BROWN, Member 25 MICHAEL L. CORRADINI, Member NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 2 1 COMMITTEE MEMBERS PRESENT (CONTINUED): 2 JOY REMPE, Member 3 MICHAEL T. RYAN, Member 4 WILLIAM J. SHACK, Member 5 JOHN D. SIEBER, Member 6 NRC STAFF PRESENT: 7 EDWIN HACKETT, ACRS Executive Director 8 HOSSEIN NOURBAKHSH, ACRS, Senior Technical 9 Advisor 10 MARTIN J. VIRGILIO, Deputy Executive Director 11 for Operations 12 13 ALSO PRESENT: 14 DIANE CURRAN, Harmon, Curran, Spielberg & 15 Eisenberg, LLP 16 PAUL GUNTER, Director of Reactor Oversight, 17 Beyond Nuclear 18 LUCAS HIXSON, Bison Resource Development Group 19 EDWIN LYMAN, Union of Concerned Scientists 20 LOUIS A. ZELLER, Blue Ridge Environmental 21 Defense League* 22 23 24 *Participating via telephone 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 3 1 I N D E X 2 AGENDA ITEM PAGE 3 Opening Remarks by ACRS Chairman ........ 4 4 NRC Staff Presentation and Discussion ...... 6 5 Public Comment .................94 6 Additional Questions/General Committee 7 Discussion ................. 118 8 Adjourn 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 4 1 P R O C E E D I N G S 2 (12:59 p.m.) 3 CHAIRMAN ABDEL-KHALIK: The meeting will 4 now come to order. 5 This is a meeting of the Advisory 6 Committee on Reactor Safeguards Fukushima 7 Subcommittee. I'm Said Abdel-Khalik, Chairman of this 8 Subcommittee. ACRS members in attendance are Michael 9 Ryan, Charles Brown, Dennis Bley, William Shack, 10 Michael Corradini, Sam Armijo, John Stetkar, Jack 11 Sieber, and Joy Rempe. Dr. Edwin Hackett is the 12 Designated Federal Official for this meeting. 13 The Subcommittee will review information 14 regarding events at the Fukushima site in Japan. We 15 will hear a presentation from the NRC staff. 16 We have received written comments from Ms. 17 Diane Curran regarding today's meeting. Copies of her 18 comments have been provided to the members. Ms. 19 Curran will also be providing oral comments. 20 In addition, we have received requests 21 from Mr. Paul Gunter and Mr. Lewis Zeller to provide 22 oral comments. Ms. Curran, Mr. Gunter, and Mr. Zeller 23 will be given time to provide their comments following 24 the scheduled presentations and Committee discussion. 25 The entire meeting will be open to the NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 5 1 public. The Subcommittee will gather information, 2 analyze relevant issues and facts, and formulate 3 proposed positions and actions, as appropriate, for 4 deliberation by the full Committee. 5 The rules for participation in today's 6 meeting have been announced as part of the notice of 7 this meeting previously published in the Federal 8 Register. 9 There is a phone bridge line for members 10 of the public. To preclude interruption of the 11 meeting, the phone will be placed in a listen-only 12 mode during the presentations and Committee 13 discussions. 14 A transcript of the meeting is being kept 15 and will be made available as stated in the Federal 16 Register notice. Therefore, we request that 17 participants in this meeting use the microphones 18 located throughout the meeting room when addressing 19 the Subcommittee. The participants should first 20 identify themselves and speak with sufficient clarity 21 and volume so they can be readily heard. 22 We will now proceed with the meeting and 23 I call upon Mr. Marty Virgilio, Deputy Executive 24 Director for Reactor and Preparedness Program of NRC 25 to begin the presentation. NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 6 1 Marty? 2 MR. VIRGILIO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, 3 and good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, members of 4 the Committee, and ladies and gentlemen in the 5 audience. 6 My responsibilities, in addition to being 7 the Deputy Executive Director for Operations, include 8 managing the away team that we have in Japan, the team 9 we have here in Washington providing support to that 10 team, the near-term Task Force and eventually, as we 11 establish the longer-term Task Force, will all become 12 collateral assignments that I will manage. 13 I do not take that assignment lightly. 14 I'll tell you that I think that our response to the 15 Fukushima events are very important to the Agency, 16 probably one of the most important things that we are 17 working on today. So with that context, let me go 18 ahead and proceed to tell you where we are today on a 19 number of different issues. 20 If we go to slide number two, it was back 21 in April where the staff had its last opportunities to 22 come forward and brief the Committee and talk about 23 some of our understanding about the early implications 24 around the events in Japan and some of the actions 25 that we were taking in response to those events. NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 7 1 Today I'll give you an update on where we 2 are relative to those activities and talk about some 3 additional actions that we also have underway, 4 including the review of some of the reports that we've 5 received. So now what we're getting is reports from 6 other countries, from other sources, as well as the 7 information that we're gathering from our team in 8 Japan today. 9 Slide three, I think it's an over 10 simplification but as you all well know, that at the 11 time of the event, we go back to March 11th, Units 1, 12 2, and 3 at Fukushima Daiichi were in operation, Unit 13 4 was defueled, Units 5 and 6 were in cold shutdown 14 when the earthquake occurred and subsequently the 15 tsunami struck the site. 16 Our understanding of the sequence of 17 events and the cause of the damage to the facility and 18 what eventually led to the severe accident that they 19 experienced, we're still learning. I think almost 20 every day we learn a little bit more about what 21 happened at the site at the time. But it really does 22 appear that the bulk of the damage and the onset of 23 the severe accident were really precipitated by the 24 tsunami, not so much by the earthquake itself. 25 I would say, and we've said over and over NEAL R. GROSS COURT REPORTERS AND TRANSCRIBERS 1323 RHODE ISLAND AVE., N.W. (202) 234-4433 WASHINGTON, D.C. 20005-3701 (202) 234-4433 8 1 again, that they are still in a severe accident 2 mitigation mode. If you think about the condition of 3 the plants today, it's static as we continue to say 4 but anything but stable. So we're continuing to 5 assess the conditions through the site team and 6 provide the support that we're asked to provide. 7 The situation today continues to get 8 better. I will say that in terms of if you look at 9 things that they've done over the last few weeks, up 10 until last -- I think last week they were still 11 feeding and bleeding the reactor. They were still 12 feeding using essentially fire hoses that were 13 eventually attached to piping and plant equipment. 14 And today we can say that they have moved 15 away from the fire hoses. They've gotten to more 16 permanent structures, different types of piping that 17 they've installed at the site. I think that you could 18 say that the reliability of the on-site power supplies 19 have been improved by bringing additional temporary 20 diesels and other activities.
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